Tesla Case Study Introduction

Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors) is an automaker, energy storage company, and solar panel manufacturer based in Palo Alto, California (Burns, 2015). The company is named after the famous electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla and was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, two engineers who wanted to prove to people that electric vehicles could be better, quicker, and more fun to drive than gasoline cars (Tesla, n.d). During the early years of its incorporation, Tesla was primarily backed by one of the co-founders of PayPal, Elon Musk. In 2006, Musk released a statement titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)" where he outlined the future for the company as follows: “build sports car,…show more content…It was during this time that Tesla also began regular production of its first fully electric car, The Roadster. With a price tag of $109,000 USD, the car was the first to be powered off of lithium-ion batteries and could travel close to 245 miles before a charge was needed (Buy Auto Insurance, 2008). Between 2008 and the third quarter of 2009, Tesla was losing money on every Roadster it built. The company nearly went bankrupt until it was bailed out by a $50 million investment from the German automaker Daimler (Woodyard, 2016). A few months later in June of 2010, Tesla became the first American car company to go public since Ford in 1956, raising $226 million in its initial public offering (Burns, 2015). Over the next few years, the company would begin shifting its focus to more affordable…show more content…Following the introduction of the Model S and Model X, the company would begin to ramp up its production to over 50,000 cars a year. During this time, Tesla would also continue to release more innovations that would transform the automotive industry. One of these innovations was its Autopilot self-driving feature, which allows vehicles to stay in their lane and keep a safe distance from other cars, even in stop-and-go traffic. The biggest surprise, however, was a high-speed charging network that enabled Tesla owners to replenish their cars range. This network was implemented all across the United States to allow free long-distance travel (Boylan, 2015). Just 10 years after releasing his “Secret Master Plan”, Elon Musk and Tesla had reached the final stage – “build an even more affordable car”. In April of 2016, the company unveiled the Model 3. Aimed at mass market consumers, it’s Tesla’s most affordable vehicle yet, with a price tag of $35,000 USD. Within just two days of the announcement, almost 300,000 pre-orders had been placed for the car worldwide (Hern,

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